Thursday, 22 August 2013

Another early start leaving the overnight moorings at Gailey just after 7.00am with the intention of passing through Penkridge before the hotel boat and butty commenced cruising for the day.

The moorings at Penkridge actually look more interesting than those at Gailey so we must store that in the grey matter.

Cross Keys at Penkridge

The plan worked as we found the hotel boat and butty still moored above Penkridge Lock. The locks came and went, although we all noted a number were starting to look like some TLC would be appreciated.

Jan was rather taken with this boater’s “veg pledge”

On reaching Moat Bridge we remembered our lunch meal at the adjacent Moat House Hotel from our 2003 cruise. It wasn’t a pleasant experience. Apparently others might be experiencing the same today as there was a white hearse being prepared in the hotel car park.

Feeling the urge to make Paul & Elaine (nb The Manly Ferry) nostalgic Jan took a photo of the Stafford Boat Club as we cruised past.

It would appear the bottom of the canal is very close to the top in some sections of the Staffs & Worcs. Both Waiouru and Kelly-Louise had to slow down to tick-over in a few places and then we collected an unwanted fisherman’s net around the prop which further delayed us.

Waiting for Kelly-Louise to get through the lock

The vegetation obscures the view of the right angle approach to the aqueduct across the River Sow and (as you would expect) we met an opposing boater already halfway across. At least the Axiom prop stops the boat quite quickly. I reversed back and hovered to one side whilst the other boater cleared the aqueduct.

The Sow and the Trent join at Great Haywood so we don’t have far to go before turning left and heading back up the Trent & Mersey.

This blog is about us, Tom and Jan.
After a decade of travelling from 'down-under' every two years to spend a brief few weeks having a wonderful canal holiday we decided to eliminate the travel and do it full time on retirement. In 2011 we moved to the UK and built Waiouru before spending 6 wonderful years cruising.
In 2017 we sold our lovely boat and moved back to Perth, West Australia where other adventures are on the 'bucket list'.